Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/424

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404
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 18.

to whom, truth was dearer than falsehood, believe any longer that his hopes of heaven lay in listening to profligate impostors. The bishops burnished up their arms. Another victim died at St Andrew's who had called Patrick Hamilton a martyr. Catherine, Patrick's sister, was called before the Bishop of Ross at Holyrood, and examined on 'justification.' No man, she said, could be saved by water; but only by the grace of God. A learned lawyer expounded to her the mysteries of 'works,' of works of 'condignity' and works of 'congruity.' 'Work here,' she cried, 'and work there, what kind of working is all this? No work can save me but the work of Christ my Saviour.' It would have gone hard with her had not James interfered. She escaped her persecutors and found a shelter in England. Thither also many others were flying from the same danger, so long as Cromwell lived, secure of protection.[1] Henry, too, himself showed occasional favour to these exiles. One of them, Andrew Charteris, a priest, had called the Scotch clergy 'children of the devil.' 'When they perceive any man take up their craft and falsehood,' he said, 'or challenge them of fornication, incontinently they accuse him of heresy. If Christ Himself were in Scotland He should be made more ignominious by our spiritual fathers than He was of old by the Jews.' Henry heard of the words, and sent for Charteris, and talked with him for an hour. At the end of the conversation the King dismissed him with a phrase which in Henry's mouth contained the

  1. Spotswood: History of the Church of Scotland, pp. 65, 66.